PORTFOLIO OF SELECTED WORKS
MITCHELL MAY
MITCHELL MAY B.Arch. Sci., M.Arch
647.998.1711 mitch.may@gmail.com mitchellmaystudio.com
CONTENTS 1.0
Introduction 1.1 Curriculum Vitae
2.0
3.0
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Academic Work 2.1 Cultura
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2.2 Tendril
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2.3 Garbage Chair
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2.4 Cirrus
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2.5 Mobile Factory
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2.6 -Volve
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2.7 Toward a New Tectonic
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Professional Work 3.1 North York’s Modernist Architecture Revisited
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3.2 Casey House Ramp
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3.3 South House
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3.4 1 Woodbank
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Introduction
CURRICULUM VITAE
EDUCATION
AWARDS + ACHIEVEMENT
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
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Introduction
OTHER AFFILIATIONS
PUBLICATIONS IN PREPARATION
PUBLICATIONS
EXHIBITIONS, CONFERENCES + EVENTS
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FUNDED RESEARCH
CERTIFICATIONS + FORMAL TRAINING
SKILLS
REFERENCES WILL BE PROVIDED UPON REQUEST
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ACADEMIC WORK
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CULTURA 2.1 Academic project, year 3, 2010
Academic Work
Located across from the Royal Ontario Museum on Bloor Street, Cultura investigates the space between; between public and private, form and skin. he primary formal metaphor is that of fabric, with two main moves; a pinch, pulling the public space of the city inward and upward into the site, and the freedom of the skin draped over the building. he separation of the skin from the main envelope allows for the creation of interstitial spaces; enclosed but outside and private while allowing for views north and south. he skin also acts as a shade for both the outdoor spaces, amenities, retail space, oices and private residences, and creates a uniied identity for the building.
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Penthouse
Two storey halfloorplate units
Full-loor units
Half-loor units
Ofice Amenity Space
Retail
Public Space
Parking
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Academic Work
Below: Ground Level Plan Right: Full-loor unit Plan
1m
1m
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5m
Below, Right: Half-loorplate two storey unit Plans
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Academic Work
Double Glazed insulated glazing unit
Mullion
Backpan Insulation Spandrel Panel
Built in lighting
Opposite: Photos of 1:25 Detail model. Above, Right: Sectional detail and axonometric.
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Academic Work
Above: Interior views of a two storey unit, with views focused out toward the south. Opposite: Perspectival section of the building.
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TENDRIL 2.2 Academic project, year 4, 2011
Academic Work
Structural Steel Educators’ Foundation Award for Excellence in Steel Design.
In botany, a tendril is a secondary support structure to the stem, used by plants to ‘feel out’ their surrounding until they ind a structure to latch on to. hese specialized structures sprout from the stem of the plant, and complete large rotations, giving themselves rigidity as they attempt to spread. In the same way, the bridge was conceived of as a reciprocal structural system; three ‘tendrils’ rotate around the central pedestrian area of the bridge, eventually meeting with the ground, and transferring all of the forces through. By coiling around itself, and in this case meeting the reciprocal
point on the frame, the structure is self-stabilizing by rotating its forces; the pivot and swivel components are stabilized by the other points on the same frame. his bridge was not conceived of as a singular structure, but rather as a system which is able to change and adapt to different site conditions, much in the way that a tendril would be able to. It is a kit of parts rather than a one-time solution, exempliied by the focus on an adaptable system of details which are able to accommodate different angles through use of rotational elements, and a system of members and ends, in which members can be fabricated to different lengths to provide varied spacing, allowing it to adapt to different situations.
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1.
2.
1: Overall axonometric view of one `bay`of the bridge. 2: Exploded axonometric demonstrating the assembly of the railing and decking within the structural component. 3: A view of the rotational elements allowing the bay to adapt to different situations. 4: Exploded axonometric of the structural component, showing various connections.
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GARBAGE CHAIR 2.3 Academic project, M.Arch 1, 2011
Academic Work
With Kara Green, Michael Suriano and Razmig Titizian
A composition of refuse, the garbage chair was the product of a one day Charette in which the value-less was to be made valuable; the bottom of a recliner, the legs of an old table, and the leather of a ripped ottoman found in dumpsters in Toronto were reconceived. he idea of inversion plays into the decisions made, with the hidden seat mechanism exposed and used as a sort of wing back, and the recliner footrest used as the legs supporting the seat.
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CIRRUS 2.4 Academic project, M.Arch 1, 2011
Academic Work
With Tricia Arabian, Marcella Au, Sebastian Law, Jessica Stanford, Michael Suriano and Razmig Titizian.
Built for the 2011 Scotiabank Nuit Blance, Cirrus was meant to allow occupants to deform the space they occupied. Taking on the form of a regular, lat grid expressed in light, suspended on a lexible frame in a downtown campus alleyway, visitors had the opportunity to manipulate the ceiling above them by pulling on hanging handles. As the night wore on, the accumulated experience of thousands of people slowly became evident as the mechanisms allowing the frame to return to a neutral position began to take on a bias related to the stress placed on them, with the almost perfectly lat light grid taking on a more undulating form by morning.
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MOBILE FACTORY 2.5
Academic Work
Academic project, M.Arch 1, 2011 An eort to imagine the future of cities, based on the notion of peak oil and the associated sudden collapse of auto dependence and the suburbs as livable places. Suburban homes would be harvested for their raw materials, processed and inished in the mobile factory. he project represents an eort to piggyback on existing underutilized infrastructure, increasing density on parking lot sites close to transportation, utilizing the predetermined standards used in the design of parking lots, while simultaneously increasing the ine grained nature of the city through the maintenance of parking aisles as secondary or tertiary arteries. Above: From left to right; raw material storage, processed material storage, CNC processing, processed material hold, control room and living quarters, engine. Below: A scenario showing the harvesting of the suburbs for their materials, and their impending transport to a processing centre.
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Left: A map showing the rail network in the Toronto area. Right: An exploded and assembled axonometric of a prototype house, showing the processed materials with the self registering joints for ease of assembly.
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Academic Work
Above: A proposal for a parking lot site along Weston Road in Toronto, showing the transformation from parking lot to community, based on standardized parking sizes.
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Above: Plans of a prototype house based on four standard sized parking spaces.
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-VOLVE 2.6
Academic Work
Academic project, M.Arch 1, 2012
8 in Cedar Lumber
Located on the shores of Lake Simcoe, the project aimed to bring public life back to the edge of the water, throughout the year, demanding a solution that could luctuate between dierent demands by dierent seasons.
3/4 in stainless steel plate with threaded bolt openings
his project proposes a lexible system of furniture composed of wood modules which can rotate around to form varying conigurations depending upon the season and needs of that season.
C-Channel track laid in concrete
Pipe rotator with cap Punched plate with rubber wheels LED lighting with frosted Cover
his system would be built into a pier upon tracks allowing for the components to remain in place while transforming, from one mode as a collection of tables and chaise lounges in the warmer months to benches and a warming hut in those cooler.
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Type 2
Type 3
400 mm
800 mm
1600 mm
1000 mm
Type 1
2 Above, Opposite bottom: Winter Mode. Below: Summer mode.
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TOWARD A NEW TECTONIC 2.7
Academic Work
Master of Architecture Thesis, 2013 In the allowance for architecture’s roles to be reduced from it, we are only left with the vestiges of the potency of form. On one hand, architecture has become the arrangement of predesigned components into discrete compositions maximizing pure, generic interior space, and on the other, formal possibilities are louted in favour of easily digestible, scenographic compositions. In both of these cases, architecture is reduced to an aesthetic add on, or to spatial arrangement in the most basic sense. Today, the architect’s workshop becomes not the material workshop as it had been in the past, but the digital workshop in which the material palette expands through the potentials of simulation. he materials are no longer brick and mortar, but energy and paths
forming the spaces more directly, and re-purposing form as the most potent tool. In opposition to the generic, thin architecture that has been produced through the use of climate control, digital simulation of environmental forces, materials, and construction can allow for the generation of a thick architecture of speciicity, tuned, and expressive of its place through an expanded sense of the tectonic material basis of form, allowing us to recapture this expressivity in a contemporary manner. By giving the envelope spatiality and infringing upon the idea of pure space supported by machines, the space is allowed to take on eects, and give form to the intangible other materials of architecture.
Below: The rectangular form of the loor plan is infringed upon by radial forms, seen in the walls as well as the dotted lines representing the roof form, demonstrating the formal approach to solar tracking which was taken.
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3m
Above: Three generations of development demonstrate the concretization of the interior space from generic container into a tuned environment through formal means.
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Academic Work
Early May Relected Light December 21, 12:00 pm December 21, 3:00 pm Views
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Above: Four sections demonstrating solar access at different times of the year and day. Below, opposite: The bed was designed for a consistent solar access time throughout the year so that the occupant could be woken by the sun. Below: The kitchen was designed for seasonal solar access, in order for the winter sun to warm the kitchen table.
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Academic Work
Middle left: A preliminary axonometric shown from the South demonstrating solar tracking used to inform some of the spaces. Bottom left: The fully developed frame of the building, shown from the North side, showing the resolution between drainage and solar tracking in the form of the roof. Opposite: Three sections show the passive cooling mode of the house with wind coming from the South and North, and how the interior form affects the movement of the air.
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Academic Work
Above: Veriication images from Vasari demonstrating the amount of light at the point of interest for the design times. Note that images on the left are designed for the winter, whereas the images on the right correspond with a year round design time.
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PROFESSIONAL WORK
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NORTH YORK’S MODERNIST ARCHITECTURE REVISITED 3.1 With E.R.A Architects, 2011 2012 Award for Heritage Communications, Canadian Association of Heritage Professionals
Professional Work
North York’s Modernist Architecture Revisited is a 2010 publication published to coincide with the 2010 North York Modernist Architecture Forum, held at the North York Civic Centre. he publication consisted of a photographic inventory of about 200 projects throughout the former municipality. Springing from a 1997 report, it was meant to raise awareness of the prevalent destruction of signiicant works of architecture, often viewed as insigniicant losses, due to inherent challenges in preserving an architecture not seen as ‘old,’ and therefore as without heritage value.
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CASEYHOUSERAMP 3.2 With E.R.A. Architects, 2012 he ramp replaced an earlier, steep ramp which became slippery in the winter, and met the street heavily with a brick wall. he new ramp was meant to appear lighter, and allow for gardens to grow beneath it, providing a softer, more inviting edge.
Professional Work
he graphic patterning on the rail relates to both the rhythm of the existing porch rail and the speed of the occupant, as they reach the top, the spacing decreases, becoming more solid as they turn to approach the inal run, with a glass guard. Simple, robust details allow for the graphic to remain prominent.
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SOUTH HOUSE 3.3 With Joey Giaimo, 2011
Professional Work
An addition to an early 20th century bungalow in the Lakeview neighbourhood in Mississauga, the form becomes a spatial movement that attempts to mediate a response to the environment as well as a response to the movement of the occupants within the space. Because of the geometry generated for these requirements, the intersections of the lumber members would have been different for each case, and thus extremely time consuming and expensive to build. So a supplementary component was added, with the underlying principles of mortise and tenon joints, in order to make the project buildable. hese components were created through the use of
Grasshopper, Rhino and AutoCAD, and then machined out of plywood and stacked. he truss forms were allowed to remain exposed, creating a link between the interior and exterior through an understanding of the slope of the roof to a single point for a water feature, as well as demonstrating the load transfer acting through them. his was further enhanced with the collaboration with an engineer leading to a ‘step down’ in member sizes as the forces collected, which was itself relected in the ‘mortises’ which connected them. his project attempted to take complex factors and put them into a formal dialog, compounding and substantiating them into an architecture of formal evidence.
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2x 3/4 in plywood plates
1/2 in Maple plywood gusset Dimensional Lumber
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Professional Work
Above: Plywood components from delivery to completed assembly. Opposite: Instructions provided to contractors, showing the dimensions of each piece of lumber and the position of each component.
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- 55"
- 9"
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- 31"
- 9 1/4"
- 8 1/4"
- 8 1/4"
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Professional Work
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Professional Work
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1 WOODBANK 3.4 With Joey Giaimo, ongoing he renovation of 1 Woodbank aims to tweak and revalue an existing housing typology which is being quickly replaced with stone and stucco mansions. he impetus for the project was borne out of the owner’s desire for a three car garage, additional bedrooms, and a larger living space for their growing family, in addition to a basement apartment.
Professional Work
he connection between levels typical of the sidesplit is maintained and enhanced, with the addition following the same logic. he removal of the lat ceiling allows for the increased visual connection between levels, and the feeling of open-ness is further enhanced by the newly open loor plan.
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Professional Work
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